Pink
Written by: joaquin
Pink was the fattest kid in fifth grade, second fattest in the whole school. Marco Ortiz was the fattest, but when you saw his parents you understood why. They were both huge – sumo huge – standing between them, Marco looked like an Olympian. Pink’s mom was 5’2” and barely 100 pounds. He didn’t know what his real dad looked like but his stepdad Steve, apart from a mild beer belly, was pretty fit. His sister was a rail, but everyone knew it was because she’d been scoring Adderall from the ADD kids since sixth grade. She was going to kick it last summer, before freshman year, but then she made varsity cheer at Hollywood High and that was pretty much the end of that.
He’d worn a pink polo shirt on the first day of second grade, and a couple of kids started calling him Pink. Then Leslie Silverman told everyone it was because he ate 10 Pink’s chili dogs every day, and that was why he was so fat. He didn’t even like Pink’s chili dogs, but that didn’t matter. Everybody called him Pink now, except his sister, who called him Tiny. Just to be a bitch.
It was Tuesday. Pink sat down to lunch at a far table, unpacking a PB& J, apple, and bag of Fritos. He’d had a PB&J at recess and there was a sleeve of Oreos and another bag of chips in his backpack, but he knew better than to eat everything at once, especially at school. Halfway through his sandwich there was an eruption of laughter from the other side of the quad; a few minutes later, Sam, a 4th grader, took a seat across the table. His real name was Osama, so of course he went by Sam, but his accent was so thick you could barley understand him. He’d come over from Dubai only a few months ago. Sometimes Pink sat with him at lunch, or he with Pink, and sometimes the girl who was held back two years in a row would join them, but it was generally a pretty quiet affair. Sam was eating some kind of weird meat mixed with rice and didn’t look up.
His mom told everyone Pink had a thyroid problem, but he didn’t know what a thyroid was. The last time he’d been to the doctor, the doctor told his mom something about if he didn’t lose weight he’d probably get diabetes, which has something to do with sugar and can make you blind. That set his mom off, yelling at the doctor about how good a parent she was and not to judge her. Pink wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but he hadn’t been to a doctor since.
After school, Pink got off the bus two stops early, rounded the corner onto Laurel Canyon, and walked to Famous Cupcakes. If there was a bunch of photographers out front you knew one of the Kardashians was inside. Kids said Sprinkles was better and that people only went to Famous because the Kardashians owned it, but Pink liked Famous. He bought four cupcakes –strawberry for his mom and sister, chocolate coconut for him and Steve. And a large soda. It was a long walk home.
By the time he turned onto his street, the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat, dripping from beneath his backpack. It ran from his neck and down his temples. It slicked his fingers, making it hard to hold the box in front of him. But it was worth it.
He dropped his backpack by the door and set the box on the island in the kitchen. It was quiet. He grabbed another soda from the fridge and found his sister upstairs, in her bathroom, putting on some makeup.
“Where’ve you been?” she said when she noticed him standing there. She continued before he could answer. “Steve got stuck in some mammoth production meeting that’s supposed to go crazy late, and mom had go show some houses to somebody. Somebody important – a Clipper – something like that. She’s taking him to dinner after.”
“Tonight?” Pink asked.
“No, last night. Don’t be stupid. I mean, she got the call at like, four. You know how they are. They make you do shit at all hours just because they can. That’s why I’m going to be famous,” she said, blotting her lipstick and dropping the tissue in the basket, “so I don’t have to work for famous people.”
She slipped past him and walked into their mom’s bedroom. Pink followed. She was in the bathroom again, at the sink, spritzing perfume on her neck.
“Where are you going?” Pink asked.
“I have to go study.”
She disappeared into the closet and emerged holding a pair of red high heels. “Don’t tell mom I wore these,” she said as she passed him again.
She slipped on the heels at the bottom of the stairs and opened the door. Pink followed her out. A guy in a letterman’s jacket was sitting in a white Mercedes in the driveway, engine running.
“Don’t worry, Tiny. I’ll be back before Mom is. There’s pizzas in the freezer.”
She slid into the passenger seat, giggled, and was gone.
Pink flipped through the channels. Nothing good. He licked the crumbs from his fingers and dropped the last wrapper into the empty box next to him on the couch. He flipped a little more and turned it off. It was almost 10; his sister would probably be home soon and yell at him for still being up. He picked up the ribbon he’d won at the science fair earlier that day. Honorable Mention. He’d never won a ribbon before, but suddenly Honorable Mention didn’t seem all that great. He dropped it into the box too, closed the lid.
He looked at his reflection in the dark of the TV screen.
A tear rolled slowly, cutting through a streak of pink frosting on his cheek.
